As is known in the art, Electro-Optic (EO)/Infrared IR imaging, detection, and characterization systems are being required to provide high Field Of View (FOV) focal plane array (FPA) sensors with ever increasing optical resolution along with higher sampling frequency to provide geometric and temporally accurate characterization of events within the FOV of the sensor. Additionally, these systems require low noise and high dynamic range to improve radiometric characterization resulting in greater data conversion requirements. The electrical bandwidth associated with focal plane arrays in ever increasing high etendue systems is so large that there is insufficient bandwidth in the sensor, platform, and transmission of data back to the system receiver to effectively use the capability of the advanced sensor systems. Previous sensors have attempted to provide large area coverage by selecting the field-of-view (FOV) to the match field-of-regard (FOR) and compromising the object plane resolution. Others have compromised the temporal resolution capability to enable reasonable data rates. Some systems compromise persistence to achieve FOV/FOR desires. Large staring IR focal plane arrays that match sub-system specifications for pixel count, resolution, data rate and dynamic range have been produced; however, these arrays have been the result of a compromised flow down of requirements from sensor manufacturers because of limitations in the bandwidth of other subsystems of the system.
To date, deployed systems have not had end-to-end response times fast enough, in some applications, to observe and respond, owing to limitations in vehicle, processing, transmission, and operator response times. Consequently, systems deployed to date have generally been limited in their ability to persistently characterize the desired Field of Regard (FOR). They have had to compromise the desired capability to achieve a workable system. For example, systems have deployed step stare sensors that lose persistence to cover the FOR, systems with too few detectors have inadequate object space resolution, or have drastically reduced the temporal frequency and suffered reduce capability for time-based characterization of events. Further, systems have not been able to achieve the desired dynamic range and have had to sacrifice radiometric accuracy.
Thus, today's Read Out Integrated Circuits (ROICs) and sensor systems have not simultaneously supported the data rate, resolution, numbers of pixels, and numbers of bits to meet the very large etendue desired by future systems. This results in compromise of system performance.